Tour 'til you drop

We signed up for another tour, an all day tour, of Northern Dominica this time.  You know, the kind that last 5-8 hours.  Wrong.....this was an all day tour that nearly turned into an overnight tour.  We were gone ELEVEN whopping hours!  It wasn't that we hit a lot of places along the way, it's more that we tended to thoroughly enjoy each place, unbeknownst to our poor driver!  Stan the Man was phenomenally patient with our lollygagging.

In some villages, this is how people get water....from a spring in the mountain.

First stop:  Deadman's Rock or maybe it was death rock.  Either way, it doesn't conjure up warm and fuzzy feelings

Alive and well in front of Calibishi Bay 

Just hangin' around like monkeys

Stopping outside a fishing village to pick dried beans for jewelry making - Stan the Man is the best!

One of THE largest lobster pots I have ever seen.  Who knew that lobsters like coconut!

Almost all fishing villages have these storage units, if you will, where fisherman can house their fishing gear.  This is an example of a better, more colorful building.  In Portsmouth, the storage building is a 2 story facility.

Fishing nets, sticks to build lobster 'cages' and Calabash (remember this is the non-edible orb that they dry out, paint and use as a serving bowl).

The wheels go round and round on Stan the Man's bus - waiting for the grown ups to get on board

Stan the Man's beautiful daughter.  We just happened to be driving through the town that she lives in with her mother, while she was on a lunch break from school.  She was soooo excited to see her daddy.

Chaudiere Pool was one of the few destinations of our tour

Stan the Man drove us up the mountain as far as he could.  Then we got out and walked the remainder of the way, which was down a steep road and through the muddy jungle.

Olivia gets a ride with Jackson

Our fearless leader, Jackson, showed us the way through the jungle and then jumped from high above the pool from the trees!!  Impressive and fun to watch.

Kate thankfully jumping from the rocks and not the trees.  It looks so easy and painless but it took each of the kids a long time of standing at the edge and starring at the water below, before they would actually jump.  

I like this picture.  It reminds me of ants crawling all over the rocks.

View from the top as we make our way back down the mountain 

 Beautiful Red Rocks are a stark contrast to the blue water and green landscape

 Eroded like sandstone

the kids found a cave 

 Another awesome example of erosion

 Looking west at the mountains toward Portsmouth

 Kate throws rocks into the surf

 Olivia's music maker

A true black sand beach (not the dirt like stuff we encountered in Guadeloupe)

Local fishing village.  This is typically how they store their boats at night...on a ramp instead of a dock or anchored in the water.

Stan the Man kindly stopped at the Cassava Bakery to pick up some Cassava bread.  It was warm and delicious with a hint of nutmeg

 Stopping to pick star fruit fresh from the tree

 The Carib Indian Territory.  It is located on the northeast side of Dominica where Carib indians still live today.  We visited the Interpretation Center.  It was a little like the Plymouth Plantation where the lively hood was re-enacted.

Checking out the lay of the land

A woman basket weaving

Kate trying things on in the basket weavers store

A canoe carved from the Gommier tree trunk

Maggie tries this plum like fruit that ended up being extremely tart

A typical house we witnessed along our tour

Another Caribbean house

Children walking home from school

One of the nicer roadside gift shops

 This is where we had a delicious lunch - in that building beyond the sign, really!

Wish we had time to taste all these (homemade in the cellar) rums

View from our table

He gets an A for posture.  Miss Manners would be proud.

Looks like they might be headed to the local market

On this one and only, very, straight road in Dominica, Stan the Man tells us that a voodoo man lives here.  We eagerly said 'can we go' like a bunch of school children wanting to go to the candy store.  Stan the man promptly says, without hesitation, 'No way, I'm not going there!'.  That was that.  We had to settle with just knowing he lived on the road we were driving on.

Sun setting on this community as we head home

We finally arrived at our boats at 9 pm!